Ijaw leader cautions militant leaders against media war

2009-08-28
Vanguard Newspaper - By Azu Akanwa

The Ijaw Monitoring Group(IMG) has cautioned the Niger Delta militant leaders on what it called their reckless media war over the amnesty issue.

In a statement signed by Coordinator of IMG, Comrade Joseph Evah, the group said it had been inundated by calls by prominent Nigerians from within and outside the Niger Delta to call the freedom fighters who had been waging a media war against each other to order.

Evah urged the Nigerian and international community to ignore the "senseless media war among militants over amnesty".

The Niger Delta rights activist alleged that the "quarrel going on in the media among militant leaders was as a result of the manipulations going on behind the scene by politicians who used the militants since 1999 to fight political opponents. We want to remind Nigerians and the rest of the world that Ijaw through our eternal hero Isaac Adakar Boro entered the armed struggle age in Nigeria even before the Igbo by declaring the Niger Delta Republic and since then, honour has not departed Ijawland.

"The current show of shame where militant leaders are exposing themselves to please political leaders in the region who who had been sponsoring them for selfish reasons is not part of Ijaw struggle. These feww misguided elements are being easily used because they suffer from intellectual poverty.
"Niger Delta politicians who are the greatest enemies of the region see them as ready-made tools to cover-up the looting of the region since 1999. We all witnessed the Biafran struggle and the June 12 struggle of the Yoruba people and we can testify that the actors never abused nor exposed themselves despite their differences because they were committed to the future generation", Evah said.